The Spaniard ends his letter with S.S.S.Q.B.S.M. and I understand this to mean su seguro servidor que besa sus manos--but he puts it in even when he writes to the papers and there is no thought of any real kissing in the case. I send you two little bits of English for (!) decipherment. They appear day by day and month by month in the _Diario de Las Palmas_ and I hope that they are intelligible to its non-English readers. The said newspaper is one of some half dozen daily rags published in our "ciudad"--I am surprised by their number. They seem largely to live upon ancient English papers--I mean papers which have taken a week to get here and have then been lying about in the hotels for another week or more. Hence queer snips from _Tit Bits_, etc.
Which makes me think of Acton. (His professed admiration of _Tit Bits_ has some basis in fact: at least I once entered a railway carriage and found him deep in said paper.) What a prodigious catechism he addressed to you! I should like to have seen your reply.... Many thanks for news of the _History_. I hope that all will go well now: I think that the team looks strong. I hear that I am to serve on the Press Syndicate: I doubt I shall do much good there--still I am quite willing to hear others talk and shall be interested in all that concerns the big book.
These last weeks I have been doing splendidly and have got through a spell of copying which would never have been done had I stayed in England--as you say, life in Cambridge is an interruption. Buckland is a good companion and I think that we have taken our cycles where cycles have not been before--a crowd of ragged boys pursues--"chiquillos" convinced of our insanity.
DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. _19 April, 1902._
I returned yesterday from a winter spent in the Canaries where I am compelled to take refuge. Already I have read your article about gifts for non-charitable purposes and have been delighted by it. It puts an accent on what I think a matter of great historical importance--namely the extreme liberality of our law about charitable trusts. It seems to me that our people slid unconsciously from the enforcement of the rights of a c.q.t. to the establishment of trusts without a c.q.t.--the so-called charitable trusts: and I think that continental law shows that this was a step that would not and could not be taken by men whose heads were full of Roman Law. _Practically_ the private man who creates a charitable trust does something that is very like the creation of an artificial person, and does it without asking leave of the State.
